* Astronomy

Title: HAT-P-16b: A 4 Mj Planet Transiting A Bright Star On An Eccentric Orbit
Authors: L. A. Buchhave, G. A. Bakos, J. D. Hartman, G. Torres, G. Kovacs, D. W. Latham, R. W. Noyes, G. A. Esquerdo, M. Everett, A. W. Howard, G. W. Marcy, D. A. Fischer, J. A. Johnson, J. Andersen, G. Furesz, G. Perumpilly, D. D. Sasselov, R. P. Stefanik, B. Beky, J. Lazar, I. Papp, P. Sari

We report the discovery of HAT-P-16b, a transiting extrasolar planet orbiting the V = 10.8 mag F8 dwarf GSC 2792-01700, with a period P = 2.775960 ± 0.000003 d, transit epoch Tc = 2455027.59293 ± 0.00031 (BJD), and transit duration 0.1276 ± 0.0013 d. The host star has a mass of 1.22 ± 0.04 Msun, radius of 1.24 ± 0.05 Rsun, effective temperature 6158 ±80 K, and metallicity [Fe/H] = +0.17 ± 0.08. The planetary companion has a mass of 4.193 ±0.094 MJ, and radius of 1.289 ± 0.066 RJ yielding a mean density of 2.42 ±0.35 g/cm³. Comparing these observed characteristics with recent theoretical models, we find that HAT-P-16b is consistent with a 1 Gyr H/He-dominated gas giant planet. HAT-P-16b resides in a sparsely populated region of the mass{radius diagram and has a non-zero eccentricity of e = 0.036 with a significance of 10 sigma.

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